Silence
by JBS-Forever
Summary: This is the way the world ends. (one-shot)


**It's 1:30 in the morning and I've hit another bout of insomnia, prompting me to write this. I have not edited it. My eyes are too tired to look for mistakes, and if I don't post it now, I know it will disappear into my other little one-shots that never make it to the light. So I apologize for any errors.**

 **Also, please don't hate me?**

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Darry's yell is the first thing he hears.

It's far away – tinny and too high in pitch, almost as if it's a different voice completely. There's something Ponyboy can't place in it. Something that sounds sickeningly familiar to despair. But Darry is never filled with despair. No, Darry is a rock. Solid and stable and never changing.

So when he yells, Ponyboy feels fear prickle through his skin, and he turns toward where he thinks he is. They'd been separated early on in the rumble. Soda had stayed with him the longest, but even he had been pulled away, ducking and backing out from a series of fists flying at his face.

The rumble was their idea. Not Ponyboy's in particular, but the greasers. Tension had been boiling between them and the Socs ever since he stepped out of the courtroom. Ever since he admitted in front of everyone what he did. Their last rumble hadn't been enough to ease the shaking. Johnny and Dally and Bob's deaths hadn't been enough.

Things got worse. At school, the Socs picked on Ponyboy. Shoved him in the hallway, threw wadded up pieces of paper with crude words scrawled them, taunted him and threatened him and hurt him. He'd come home too many times with black eyes and bruises in the shape of fingers, and Darry and Sodapop sat at night, when they thought he was asleep, and talked seriously about moving him to a different school. Ponyboy knew it wouldn't help, though. No matter where he went, he'd never escape. Not when the real monsters were inside him.

He told Darry that, once, right after he'd woken from a nightmare and was still too groggy to realize what he was saying. Darry's face was tight even in the dimness of his room. He muttered something Ponyboy couldn't hear, and then they pushed it aside and never brought it back up. Nightmare after nightmare, black eye after black eye, he tried to run from the monsters, but they always caught up to him. And Darry knew. Darry tried with all his might to keep those monsters away.

It was a tag-team effort. Where Darry couldn't reach, Soda could, and they mixed together in an attempt to fill every empty space in Ponyboy's heart. To make sure he knew he wasn't alone. And he appreciated it, he did. He could feel their overwhelming waves of protectiveness and love. But the tension was still growing everywhere outside him, the ground vibrating and trembling under his feet, and somehow they ended up here, in the same place where everything started.

Ponyboy turns toward Darry's voice, but just like it always is, just like it always has been, it's not enough.

White hot pain erupts in his chest. Darry is shoving through people in slow motion. Ponyboy can see him yelling, but he can't hear him. There's nothing but the harsh sound of his own breath in his ears.

He looks down to where his skin is burning. He feels detached from his body, floating somewhere far away in a hazy dream. There's something stuck in his flesh. Something that looks familiar and foreign at the same time. He can't remember what it is. He isn't sure why he should care.

Then, like a flash, it's ripped free, and he's dropped back into his body with a wave of excruciating pain. He's falling. _Falling and falling and falling and falling_.

Hands grab him, slow his descent, soften the impact. Someone is whispering to him, their breath warm against his ear. He knows without looking that it's Sodapop. Recognizes the gentle, tender touch.

And then he's floating again, watching from above as Darry kneels on the other side of him.

"Shit, shit!" Darry slips out of his shirt and shoves it against Ponyboy's wound, pushing hard. "Someone call 911!"

Ponyboy hears himself moan.

"Hang on, Pone," Darry mutters. "Just hang on. We're gonna get you help."

His vision dances around him. He's inside his body and outside his body at the same time, feathery and light and drifting too far away. He tries to anchor himself to something. Reaches out and catches Soda's arm.

"I'm here, Ponyboy," his brother says, and his voice shakes and cracks with tears. "I'm here."

And isn't this just ironic? After everything Ponyboy's been through, he's going to die in a rumble that was his fault to begin with. A full circle. Karma coming back for him. The universe setting things right.

Laughter bubbles in his throat, leaving wet marks as it escapes from his mouth. Someone swears again, low and frantic, and tries to calm him down. He's still laughing, but he's not sure why. He can't stop.

"Just relax," Soda says. "Relax, Pone. Take it easy. Breathe."

Ponyboy wants to, but oh God – it's so _quiet_. There's no voice in his head. No guilt playing at his conscience. No heartache. He is free and empty and it's _nice_. So, so very nice.

He swallows and sobers.

"Soda," he chokes. "S-Soda, where are y-you?"

Soda leans forward into his line of vision. "I'm right here, kiddo."

Ponyboy's chest is tight. He moves his eyes to Darry, who is still pressing on him, making it hard to breathe. He flings his hand out, his limb uncontrolled, fumbling through open air until he knocks into Darry's wrist and wraps his fingers around it.

"I see you," he whispers. And for the first time, he really does. He sees the boy who had his entire life ripped out from under his feet. The boy who fought to keep him and Soda in his life. The boy who had been forced to grow up too fast, too soon, only to watch as everything he picked up slowly slipped through his grip. He'd kept them together, made them a family, and Ponyboy wants to tell him that out of everything else, that was enough. It always had been enough.

But his brain can't send the words to his lips, so he tightens his already weak hold on his oldest brother and blinks against the tears stinging his eyes.

"It's okay," Darry says. "Help is coming. Stay with me."

He wants to stay, he does, but he knows he can't. Not this time.

 _Not this time._

He coughs and sputters against pain he should be feeling and pain he's too far away to care about.

"Darry," Soda breathes. "That's blood."

"It's all blood, Sodapop," Darry snaps. "I'm trying to slow it."

"No. No, Dar." There's a moment of silence. "He's coughing up blood."

Distantly, Ponyboy reaches to his face and touches it, bringing it back to look at the red stain. He doesn't need to see it to know it's true. He feels liquid in his lungs. Feels like he's drowning.

"Jesus Christ."

"We should – we need – where is the ambulance?"

"I don't know, Soda." Darry barks something over his shoulder. There must be people around them, watching. The other greasers. The fight must be over.

"Did w-we win?" Ponyboy asks, choking again. Soda shushes him.

"Yeah, kiddo. We won. Now be quiet."

But Soda doesn't know that he _is_ quiet. Finally. _Finally_. No more monsters chasing him. No more nightmares plaguing him. No voices telling him he's not good enough, that he never has been, never will be. It's all gone. Everything.

And this is the way the world ends. In absolute, pure, blissful silence.

"Ponyboy, stay awake! Damn it, open your eyes! Open your eyes, Ponyboy!"

He blinks slowly, lazily, his energy ebbing out from the open wound into Darry's hands. He wheezes out another cough. The taste of copper stings his tongue.

"Stay with me," Darry says. "Don't close your eyes."

Ponyboy's lips twitch into a smile. Darry's grip has loosened just a fraction of an inch, as if he's afraid he's the reason Ponyboy is spitting up blood. Sirens are ringing in the distance, but they're just as far away as Ponyboy is.

The tears slip from the corners of his eyes and run down his nose and back into his hairline.

"It's okay. It's okay," Soda murmurs. "Medics are almost here. They're gonna fix this. They're gonna make you all better, kiddo."

Ponyboy wants to tell him it's not the medics that will make him better. That it was _him_ who made him better. Him and Darry and their complicated lives filled with misunderstandings that tore them apart and brought them back together again. Yes, Ponyboy gets it now. Understands that they needed one more thing to shake the ground, just one more thing to rattle the pieces so they could break free from where they were stuck and come back together. Windrixville had done that. The fire had done that. Bob had done that. It all had gotten them back in motion, made them move again after being still for too long.

"I love y-you," he says, and he's not sure who he's talking to, but he hopes they both know. Hopes they never forget it.

"Don't, Ponyboy," Darry says. "Don't talk like that. Don't talk like it's the end. The ambulance is almost here. You just gotta hold on a few more minutes."

But it is the end. Ponyboy knows it. He can feel it. And _oh_ , it's more beautiful than he ever could have imagined.

Darry makes a low noise of distress in his throat. "Please, Ponyboy. It's gonna be okay. You're gonna be okay."

And there, behind Darry's shoulder, far beyond anything his brothers can see, is his mom, his dad, Johnny, Dally. All smiling at him, waiting for him with open arms and peaceful quiet and promises of love and comfort.

"You're gonna be okay," Darry chants, over and over and over.

Ponyboy smiles again.

"Yeah," he says, and closes his eyes, his last ounce of strength just a whisper in the night. "I know."


End file.
